White Crystal Butterflies | Wattys 2021 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I've never seen someone grow up as fast as Liu does when she realizes this mission is going ahead. She takes my orders and does what I ask quickly and competently. She and Kwon head off to tune the mask while I start throwing supplies together from the piles I already assembled.

It's hard to know what to prepare for, but the more I contemplate it, the more I think I can take a guess. Krüger dropped through the snow. Given what Liu described and the fact that he's not back yet, he's probably trapped underground. If this was any other snowy landscape ever, I'd be concerned about suffocation, but Mahaha's surface moves too much to truly close off a pocket of air. I bump that worry down the list.

There are other options, though, that could explain his continued absence. One is injury. Another is an attack like Mahaha made on Kwon. If he's lost his oxygen tank, there's nothing Liu or I could have done. She made the right decision, flagging the spot and coming back for help, but we've sacrificed time in the process. The hope, then, is that the hole Krüger dropped through didn't close in, even if it closed over. Somehow, that seems more Mahaha-esque than the alternatives.

I note that down.

If the moon is a toddler and it really does like Krüger, maybe it decided to keep him. I would hope it at least knows the basics of keeping him alive, then, though I have some confidence in that given that it also knows how to attack and kill.

Either way, we'll need to be prepared for a vast range of scenarios, from body retrieval to first aid to negotiation. At least some of the supplies for those overlap. I pack thin, strong rope, note a gut feeling about it, and throw in another coil. Ice-climbing equipment is useful everywhere on Mahaha, and there's an emergency blanket in our gear cupboard that doubles as a tent. The litter doesn't sting me this time as I add it to the pile. I hope we don't have to use it. Krüger's not heavy—Liu and I between us could lift him—but any injury serious enough to require immobilization vastly decreases his chance of survival. There's no hospital in our reach for the next five months.

I'm rooting out field-food from the storerooms when Kwon knocks on the wall at the top of the stairs. They're ready to test the mask. We agreed that I would be the one to try it, being the most familiar with asphyxiation warning signs and the most likely to notice them creeping up on me. Liu might have the smarts to know the former, but there's a different kind of attunement to your body that comes with experience in the field.

I join Liu in the entryway. We suit up and step into the airlock together; it'll serve as our test chamber, a door away from the safe indoors in case something goes wrong. Liu and I are wearing the last two functioning oxygen masks, and I've got an oxygen meter clipped to my finger. Between us is a bucket of ice Kwon scraped from our freezers so we don't have to go outside. We sit down facing one another, and I give Kwon the signal to start the air exchange.

Both doors seal, and the temperature in the airlock starts dropping. When a light on the outside door indicates we're now in outdoor conditions, I swap my mask for the test one and turn it on. It complies without a hitch. The snow-chamber on top of its tank is easy enough to load over my shoulder. I hold my breath while the heating mechanism melts the frozen payload and sends the water into a catalysis tube. The gas percentages on the tiny screen in my goggles zoom back to normal and hold there as oxygen joins their mix.

I take a careful breath, then another one. A minute goes by with no ill effects. Unless its system breaks after extended use, this works.

"What's the longest you've left it on for?" I ask Liu, noting that the numbers don't change even as talking disrupts the pattern of my breathing. Good.

"Overnight. We had to keep restocking it with snow, but I added an alarm for when it's running low on water."

"Have you shock-tested it, too?"